SARASOTA, Fla. — I am aboard the Sea Gypsy again, interviewing manufactured-home residents some days, being deckhand and cook on my friend’s trawler on others. But I admire the beauty of the Intracoastal Waterway every day.

Here on the Gulf Coast, the Intracoastal Waterway is lined with houses, docks and canals. Houses may not be the correct word. Many are more like small palaces, and it is probably safe to say there are more Tuscan villas here than in all of Tuscany. But that’s another story.

Anna Maria Island is the west side of the waterway as you travel south from Tampa Bay toward Sarasota. It is connected to the mainland by two bridges that are raised when necessary for passing boats. The bridge farthest south connects to a mainland area named Cortez. As we pass, a scan through the binoculars reveals something unexpected: a ground-hugging dockside and no Tuscan palaces.

It is another resident-owned manufactured home community. It is small: a 5-acre site with 79 homes. Find a place there, and you can live close to the water without spending a million (or way more) while still being close to the luxurious silence of the Longboat Key Club.

Places like Cortez Park are scarce, but others dot the coast. Miles to the south, for instance, you’ll find the Naples Land Yacht Harbor. It is resident-owned, with 352 homes. The monthly homeowner fee is $205 a month for non-waterfront and $230 a month for waterfront.

We motor on, eager to reach Marina Jack’s and its easy access to downtown Sarasota. As we coast into our slip, I hand Annie a spring line. She is a familiar face at the gas dock, with the deep tan that comes from years in the sun and a glistening, brilliant red manicure. Perfect for a John D. MacDonald novel.

A place for the winter

Thwarted by weather, I rent a car and drive to Fort Myers. A friend there is nearing 90 but still plays tennis three times a week. He’s a former Fortune 500 executive; he and his wife live in a gated community and are members of a nearby yacht club.

When I mentioned manufactured homes, he said, “One of my tennis buddies lives in a mobile home. We’ll go see him.”

We drive to nearby Siesta Bay. Tony Gless meets us at the park’s tennis courts. He asks us to follow his bicycle. Tony is tall, fit and cheerful. So is his wife, Pat. Tony retired as a middle school math teacher to take care of his ailing mother just before he turned 60. His wife owned a small dress shop. They now spend winters in Fort Myers and then return to Kalamazoo, Mich.

“We tried different places in Florida but always returned to Fort Myers. We first rented a condo on Fort Myers Beach. But friends had a place here. We thought trailer park, but we rented for two months and bought this place before we left. There is so much to do.”

Pat adds: “Last night was the first night we didn’t do anything with other people in weeks.”

Low-cost living

I asked about the economics. “We own some farmland [in Michigan], but we don’t have that much cash, so renting the land was a good thing. Our unit cost $35,000, and that was easy to manage,” Tony explained. Their land lease at Siesta Bay costs about $6,200 a year. Other expenses are small.

There are 150 tennis players and he is the coordinator, he said. “At home I’m active and on boards, but here I hold back and have fun.”

Commenting on the back-and-forth lifestyle, he says: “I’ve been able to keep continuity of relationships. And here I can raise a tennis group in a morning!”

I asked if having a second home is a stretch.

Tony smiled. “We’re careful. Think of us as urban Amish. We don’t use computers. We don’t have Internet service or cable. We have an inexpensive phone service.” They are careful with their spending.

Why am I telling you all this? Simple. It’s time to drop the “ick” response when we say trailer park. These communities are low-cost, easy-living second homes for people who can afford to vacation five months of the year.

Stretch occupancy to year-round, and you get a one-stop-shopping retirement solution for millions of people facing the prospect of retiring less well-off than they expected.

Either way, it’s an interesting possibility.

Scott Burns is a syndicated columnist and a principal of the Plano-based investment firm AssetBuilder Inc. Email questions to scott@scottburns.com.